Kidney Matters - Issue 12 Spring 2021
Kidney Matters is our free quarterly magazine for everyone affected by kidney disease. This issue includes a tribute to Kidney Care UK Chair of Trustees Professor Donal O'Donoghue who passed away due to covid-19 at the start of the year. There's also a feature on sex and relationships, how your views helped shape covid-19 national policy, medical articles on anaemia and simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation, and a feature interview with a transplant recipient on some of the social stigmas often faced by people with chronic health conditions within the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community. As well as this, we'll be looking back at two years of the Kidney Kitchen as we cook up a tasty tandoori with guest chef and RNG dietitian, Gabby Ramlan.
Kidney Matters is our free quarterly magazine for everyone affected by kidney disease.
This issue includes a tribute to Kidney Care UK Chair of Trustees Professor Donal O'Donoghue who passed away due to covid-19 at the start of the year. There's also a feature on sex and relationships, how your views helped shape covid-19 national policy, medical articles on anaemia and simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation, and a feature interview with a transplant recipient on some of the social stigmas often faced by people with chronic health conditions within the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community.
As well as this, we'll be looking back at two years of the Kidney Kitchen as we cook up a tasty tandoori with guest chef and RNG dietitian, Gabby Ramlan.
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Persons
name here
9
Sarah Green
this might have scared people away. Now I approach
the topic of my health differently.
“When I first speak to somebody I will focus on how I
love life; we will talk about travel, going out, festivals,
‘normality’. Eventually I’ll speak about my job too, which
is usually a clue to the fact I’m a kidney patient myself.
I have found that doing things this way doesn’t scare
people away because it gives them a chance to see me
before they see my medical condition.”
Amongst all the challenges, a combination of personal
confidence and solid support from loved ones is
what helps us cope. Maddy says: “I have come to
the conclusion that facing my mortality so early on
did set my personal values bar extremely high. I am
brave enough to face difficult situations, to have hard
conversations with a partner and to walk away rather
than tolerate something that isn’t making me happy.
Because life really is too short.”
Gemma feels that sometimes we are our own
worst critics and can hold ourselves to harshly high
standards. Her best advice came from a close friend
who said “It’s okay to have a bad day. It’s okay to cry if
you want to and rage about the unfairness of it all.” She
told me “We have been dealt a bit of a shitty hand and
we are allowed to be sad if we need to.”
Brett is also grateful for the power of wonderful
friendship. “In all the ups and downs, my best friend
was my rock and got me through many rough patches.
Good relationships do not always need to be sexual –
sometimes they are just the person who can listen and
understand who you are,” he says.
Learning to live with the cards that life has dealt us can
sometimes be impossibly hard. In Sarah’s case she
says: “I never could have imagined my life being like
this, so holding on to that image of what could have
been now seems redundant. Sometimes you just have
to tell the fear, the uncertainty and the ‘what ifs’ to do
one. Be realistic, be adaptable and try not to listen to
people telling you no too much.”
For more information on sexual
health or to access our counselling
service, go to
www.kidneycareuk.org/learn-more
LEARN MORE
Photography and front cover image by Richard Booth
www.richardbooth.co.uk To view the ‘Survivors: Life Unfiltered’ exhibition
by Richard Booth & Maddy Warren, go to www.survivorslifeunfiltered.co.uk
“The physical and emotional
impact of CKD on a
healthy sex life is
rarely addressed
by medical
professionals.“
DaymonJohnstone
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